Mind your language + Dennis Potter | The Guardianhttps://www.theguardian.com/media/mind-your-language+culture/dennis-potter
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What's the loveliest word in the English language? | Mind your languagehttps://www.theguardian.com/media/mind-your-language/2012/may/25/mind-your-language-loveliest-word
Here are some suggestions. Now we'd like to hear yours<p>It was the linguist JR Firth who, in 1930, coined the term <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phonaesthetics" title="phonoaesthetics">phonoaesthetics</a> to refer to the study of how words sound. I came across it recently when, 26 years later than most, I heard Marlow ask in Dennis Potter's The Singing Detective: "What's the loveliest word in the English language, officer? In the sound it makes in the mouth? In the shape it makes in the page? E-L-B-O-W." (And yes, for anyone else who didn't know, it is where the band got its name.)</p><p>The film Donnie Darko offers a tip of its hat, too, in the lines of Drew Barrymore's character, teacher Karen Pomeroy: "This famous linguist once said that of all the phrases in the English language, of all the endless combinations of words in all of history, 'cellar door' is the most beautiful." The famous linguist was none other than JRR Tolkien, and he made the claim in his 1955 lecture <a href="http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/J._R._R._Tolkien" title="English and Welsh">English and Welsh</a>.</p> <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/media/mind-your-language/2012/may/25/mind-your-language-loveliest-word">Continue reading...</a>MediaLanguageJRR TolkienDennis PotterFri, 25 May 2012 11:30:01 GMThttp://www.theguardian.com/media/mind-your-language/2012/may/25/mind-your-language-loveliest-wordHarriet Powney2012-05-25T11:30:01Z